


Shimmy

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [25]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blue Hawke, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Magic isn't for your amusement! Why don't I just do a little dance?"</p><p>The official inauguration of an apostate as Champion of Kirkwall. No one dances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shimmy

“Please don’t disturb the mages,” a templar says firmly.

Behind her, the mages in question lean against the wall, watching Hawke’s exchange with their guard. Taking a break from sending sprays of colored lights into the air throughout the Viscount’s Keep, adding a bit of entertainment to Hawke’s formal inauguration as Champion and the banquet that’s followed.

And part of him wants to press the issue, argue with the templar just because he can, see how far this title can get him. But he thinks of the mage in the Gallows courtyard who’d been whipped after he talked to her, and if he pushes things too far here, he won’t be the one who answers for it.

A press of unfamiliar faces who all seem to know him and want to offer their personal congratulations, their condolences for his mother—and it seems like half of Hightown suddenly has fond memories of being his mother’s close childhood friend, while the other half are doing their best to ignore his existence entirely, a rather impressive feat while at a banquet in his honor—and then he’s back at Anders’ side, accepting the drink he hands over. Anders’ fingers are clenched tight around his own long-stemmed glass of something that can’t possibly be having any effect on him but he holds onto it like a lifeline nonetheless, and his mouth is a grim line, but it softens as he watches Hawke.

“It’s enough that they see you tonight,” Anders says quietly against his ear, glancing to the mages, and his free hand brushes against the back of Hawke’s. “A mage made Champion.” Looking at Hawke with so much pride it’s overwhelming. And Hawke turns his palm over, catches Anders’ fingers.

“Us. They see _us_. Free mages.”

And Anders is a sight tonight in the heavy blues of his Warden uniform, which Hawke privately thinks was designed just to highlight the way those trousers mould to his body. All his hair gathered into a ponytail so severe it makes Hawke want to run his hands through it and mess it up a little. He looks like a dare. A mage living free and openly, and not one of the templars in the room will do anything about it. And Hawke is grinning foolishly at him, and slowly Anders smiles right back.

Hawke tries to hold onto that feeling as a stranger’s hand lands on his shoulder, and he turns to face a rather nervous-looking well-wisher, doing his best to project _yes, you all saw me kill a man with my mind, but I’m no threat to you, really, I promise. No templars required._

Though he’s reasonably certain the Circle mages aren’t the only ones that the templars are here to watch.

* * *

A spray of colored lights go up from a corner, and the elderly woman Hawke has been speaking to turns speculative eyes on him. “Can _you_ do that, Champion?” she asks, waggling her fingers illustratively. “Would you?”

“Mother!” hisses the young woman at her side, face half hidden behind her hand. Hawke’s pretty sure he’s met them both at one of his mother’s attempts at matchmaking. She shoots Hawke an apologetic look. “He’s not like that,” he hears her saying as she ushers her mother away, leaving him wondering what she thinks he is like, exactly.

“What am I not like?” he asks out loud, and Anders shrugs, amused.

“I can think of a few things. It was a compliment. Probably.”

Hawke looks down at his fingers, curious now. Considering the magic they’d seen him do so far, the memories of that disaster of a duel lingering on everyone’s mind, some harmless colored lights might not be that bad of an idea.

He wonders how it’s done. Not elemental, surely, though he thinks he might be able to come up with something similar that way, a little spray of colored sparks. Spirit, maybe? He’s always been hopeless at that. Well, present company aside. He likes to think he’s rather good with one particular spirit. “How does that spell work, anyway?”

Anders’ hands close over Hawke’s, folding his fingers closed, and when he looks up Anders has a pained expression. “Please don’t do that. You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to,” Hawke says, bewildered. He gets the impression he’s somehow hit a nerve. “Something wrong?”

Features set in an odd mixture of disgust and protectiveness, lip curling. “You’re their Champion, not their pet mage. We’re not here for their entertainment.” Shoulders high and tight and the most uncomfortable he’s looked so far tonight, even with all the templars around. And Hawke traces small soothing circles against the palm of Anders’ hand where it lies over his.

But it kind of feels like that _is_ what he’s here for. Or if not entertainment, then at least putting on some sort of show. Some sort of reassurance that mages are capable of living free, that there’s no need to fear he’ll turn on them, do to them what he did to the Arishok. “I don’t mind doing a few party tricks. Better than seeing me as some kind of weapon, isn’t it?”

“Why are those the only options?” Anders says, plaintive.

And Hawke follows his gaze to the Circle mages with their templar guards, the carefully maintained distance between them and the noble guests. Pulled out of the Gallows to serve as entertainment, seen and not heard.

And there’s so much tension in Anders, Hawke half expects to see blue light shining through. But Anders closes his eyes, and when he opens them again they’re still brown, searching Hawke’s face for understanding.

“You might as well … do a little dance for them,” Anders says at last, quiet and bitter.

“Kind of thought you enjoyed when I do that.” He watches Anders smile with only one side of his mouth. Looks at the man before him in his Warden blues and tries to imagine a younger version standing among those Circle mages, tries to reconcile the ease and openness of Anders’ magic with a life spent growing up under templar eyes. “All right. Wasn’t thinking.”

Anders ducks his head. And he releases Hawke’s hand, fingers running lightly over Hawke’s wrist as he lets go. “Sorry, I should—I’m going to go. Get some air.”

“Do you want company?”

And Anders’ eyes are filled with so much warmth and gratitude, it’s dizzying. But he shakes his head.

“Stay. Somehow, I think someone might notice if the guest of honor disappears,” he says, and makes to leave. “You’re their Champion, love. Don’t let them forget it.”

Their apostate Champion, if he could only figure out what that’s supposed to be. Not a weapon or a pet.

“Wait.” He pulls Anders back, pulls him into a kiss that’s quick and light, conscious of the eyes on them, wanting them to look. Wanting to wrap Anders in whatever protection his title has to offer.

* * *

The household is dark and quiet when Hawke gets home some hours later, and his bed is empty except for a sleepy dog and the fine silk clothes Orana had laid out for Anders. Which Anders had ignored, coming downstairs in that uniform instead, tugging at the cuffs of his sleeves. Hawke had only seen his uniform once before, after Anders’ reconciliation with the Warden-Commander. He hadn’t been sure Anders had kept it.

Lirene will probably appreciate a donation of silks, anyway.

And he’s disappointed but not surprised by the empty room, briefly debates heading down through the basement passage to check the clinic, but finally just pulls a chair up to the bedroom fire and sits down with a book on Rivaini seers that Athenril had finally turned up for him.

He turns over the banned book in his hands, finding something about it suddenly funny. All that time and effort keeping his magic hidden, the smuggling, the lies, and now it’s all out in the open. No more need to put on a show.

Except for the part where now it feels like everyone’s eyes are on him, judging whether or not mages need to be locked up after all. Trying to figure out how to talk to a mage who doesn’t have a templar looking over their shoulder.

“No party tricks, huh?” he says out loud.

Unfortunately, the dog doesn’t have any helpful answers for him. And he’s working his way through a dubiously accurate, definitely sensationalized account of willing possession when he hears the door.

“I think I finally found the Invisible Sisters’ hideout,” Anders says by way of a greeting. He drapes his arms over Hawke’s shoulders from behind and holds up a slightly stained map. “Tomorrow?”

“It’s a date.” There’s a lingering pressure in the air around Anders that suggests a recent appearance from Justice. Hawke wraps a hand around his forearm, holding him in place, thumb stroking along the heavy fabric of his sleeve. “Feel better now?”

A huff of warm breath against his hair. “Slightly less useless, maybe,” Anders admits. “Sorry for abandoning you.”

“Mm. Threw me to the wolves,” he agrees. He closes the book as Anders pulls away, turns to watch him halfheartedly and ineffectively try to shoo the dog off the bed, until Hawke takes pity on him and calls the dog to his side. He obligingly flops down before the fire with a _whuff_. “Turns out Bran still hates me. Nice to know the world hasn’t turned completely upside down.”

And the templars had stayed determinedly on their guard all night. His parents used to talk about meeting at a party much like that one and sneaking off together, but after tonight, he’s having a hard time imagining how they managed it. Different times, he supposes. The banquet being in honor of an apostate probably didn’t exactly help, either.

But on the bright side, the Knight-Commander hadn’t changed her mind and decided to lock them both up after all. He’ll count that as a win.

And Anders has a small, bemused smile on his face, sitting on the edge of the bed with only one boot off. The usual boots, with the pleasant scent of well-worn leather and far, far too many buckles, which Hawke is fairly sure aren’t part of the uniform. He’s gone still save for his fingers, toying with the silk shirt Orana had laid out for him on the bed.

Hawke kneels in front of him and reaches for the buckles of his second boot, gives him a questioning look.

“Do you ever have a hard time believing this is your life?” Anders says.

And Hawke isn’t sure just how much _this_ is meant to encompass—the ceremony and the banquet, the city full of people who know him and Anders for mages and the surprising lack of templars breaking down their door, the silk shirt beneath Anders’ hand and the dog falling asleep before the fireplace, all of Kirkwall—but the answer’s the same.

“I don’t think it is. I think I’m going to wake up any moment now.” To the sound of Gamlen’s snoring, probably. Though he’s not sure he’d mind if most of the events of the past few years were just a dream.

Anders slides a gentle hand through Hawke’s hair, and Hawke amends that thought. There are a few recent developments he’d rather not wake up from.

But he doesn’t think that’s what Anders was asking about. And Anders still looks more at ease in Darktown than he does walking out their front door, and Hawke doesn’t know how to fix that, doesn’t know if he can, just wants Anders to know he belongs here, no matter how strange their lives might be. “Hard to believe in a good way or a bad way?”

“It’s just a little surreal,” Anders says. “You realize every Circle mage at the ceremony tonight was hoping for something like this. A noble patron to rescue them from the templars and give them a nice, Chantry-approved position in the outside world. Their personal healer or advisor or whatever else. A fine estate. Fine silks. …Not my best color, these,” he adds, plucking at the soft russet shirt.

Hawke pauses, fingers on the buckles of Anders’ boots. “That’s not what you wanted when you were in the Circle,” he says, not quite a question.

“It doesn’t really matter what I wanted anymore, does it?” He tilts his head back, looking up at the canopy of the bed. “But I do feel like I’ve stolen his life.”

“Him?”

“The old Anders. The one who should be here.” The pressure of the Fade around his skin remains faint and steady, and there’s no blue in his eyes. Still just Anders. With one boot off and his hair back in that severe ponytail and his Warden armor, harsh and vulnerable all at once. “The one who wouldn’t have run out on your party tonight. Not without taking you along, anyway. You’d have liked him.”

The one from Isabela’s stories, the one he can only sometimes recognize in the man in front of him. Hawke rests his hand on Anders’ knee. “I kind of like the you I’ve got.” And Anders closes his eyes, but there’s a soft smile on his lips.

“I know. That’s part of what’s so hard to believe.”

Hawke leans up and reaches for the tie holding Anders’ hair back, ruffling his hair as he’s wanted to do all night. And the rest of his life seems a little upside down, but this, right here—this is right.


End file.
